n. A rustic cottage or abode; poetically, an attractive abode or retreat.

n. A shelter or covered place in a garden, made with boughs of trees or vines, etc., twined together; an arbor; a shady recess.

transitive v. To embower; to inclose.

intransitive v. To lodge.

n. A young hawk, when it begins to leave the nest.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A dwelling or habitation; particularly, a cottage; an unpretentious residence; a rustic abode.

n. An inner room; any room in a house except the hall or public room; hence, a bedchamber.

n. Especially, a lady's private chamber; a boudoir.

n. A shelter made with boughs or twining plants; an arbor; a shady recess.

To inclose in a bower, or as in a bower; embower; inclose.

To take shelter; lodge.

n. One who or that which bows or bends; specifically, a muscle that bends the joints.

n. An anchor carried at the bow of a ship.

n. In falconry, a young hawk when it begins to leave the nest and to clamber on the boughs. Also called bowess, bowet.

n. A peasant; a farmer.

n. In euchre, one of the two highest cards, or, if the joker is used, the second or third highest.

n. A bow-maker; a bowyer.

n. One who plays with a bow on a violin or other stringed instrument.

n. A person who rents or leases the dairy stock on a farm, together with pasture and fodder for them, and makes what he can from their produce, the cultivation of the farm still remaining with the farmer or proprietor.

Yet I entertained such an abhorrence of the savage wretches that I have been speaking of, and of the wretched, inhuman custom of their devouring and eating one another up, that I continued pensive and sad, and kept close within my own circle for almost two years after this: when I say my own circle, I mean by it my three plantations - viz. my castle, my country seat (which I called my bower), and my enclosure in the woods: nor did I look after this for any other use than an enclosure for my goats; for the aversion which nature gave me to these hellish wretches was such, that I was as fearful of seeing them as of seeing the devil himself.

Whither they went, or how they bestowed their time that evening, the Spaniards said they did not know; but it seems they wandered about the country part of the night, and them lying down in the place which I used to call my bower, they were weary and overslept themselves.

Another strange Australian bird is called the bower-bird, because when a bower-bird wishes to go courting he builds in the Bush a little pavilion, and adorns it with all the gay, bright objects he can -- bits of rag or metal, feathers from other birds, coloured stones and flowers.

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"Who knows what you've spoken to the darkness, in the bitter watches of the night... when all your life seems to shrink, the walls of your bower closing in about you... a hutch to trammel some wild thing in. So fair. So cold. Like a morning of pale spring still clinging to winter's chill." (Grima, The Two Towers)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:Its loveliness increases; it will neverPass into nothingness; but still will keepA bower quiet for us, and a sleepFull of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.